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SB 204 - The Dirty Water Bill
If there was one bill that was considered by the Kansas State Legislature in 2001 that deserved the title of "Worst Environmental Bill of the Session", it was SB 204. This measure intended to reclassify virtually every stream and many rivers in Kansas so that KDHE could not regulate them for pollution.
See below for the history of the bill and the comments of our Executive Director on the early versions of it.
For further background on SB 204, see the Kansas Sierra Club website.
Note: then KDHE Secretary Clyde Graeber, who testified against this measure in both the House and Senate, publicly called for Graves to veto this bill. Ignoring his own cabinet secretary's advice, Governor Graves signed the bill on April 13, 2001.
 | A substitute version of the bill was reported out of Senate committee on March 2. It was approved with some amendments in the full Senate on March 13 by a vote of 32-8. The votes were as follows. Nays supported tougher standards for surface water quality. |
Yeas: Adkins, Allen, Barnett, Barone, Brownlee, Brungardt, Clark, Corbin, Downey, Emler, Feleciano, Goodwin, Haley, Harrington, Hensley, Huelskamp, Jackson, Jenkins, Kerr, Lee, Lyon, Morris, O'Connor, Oleen, Pugh, Salmans, Schmidt, Steineger, Taddiken, Teichman, Tyson, Umbarger.
Nays: Donovan, Gilstrap, Gooch, Jordan, Praeger, Schodorf, Vratil, Wagle.
| The House approved an amended version on March 23 by a vote of 83 to 36. Although this is being characterized as a "workable compromise" by the proponents, it still remained fundamentally flawed by: 1) contravening federal law and 2) substituting a legislative mandate for the regulatory process. The House vote was as follows. Nays supported tougher standards for surface water quality. |
Yeas: Aday, Alldritt, Aurand, Ballou, Beggs, Bethell,
Boston, Compton, Cook, Cox, Dahl, Dreher, Edmonds, Faber, Feuerborn, Freeborn, Garner,
Gatewood, Glasscock, Gordon, Grant, Hayzlett, Henry, Hermes, Holmes, Horst, Huebert, Huff,
Humerickhouse, Hutchins, Johnson, Krehbiel, Landwehr, Lane, Larkin, Levinson, Light,
Lightner, Lloyd, P. Long, Loyd, Mason, Mayans, Mays, McClure, McCreary, McKinney,
McLeland, Merrick, Miller, Minor, Jim Morrison, Judy Morrison, Myers, Neufeld, Newton,
Novascone, O'Brien, O'Neal, Osborne, Ostmeyer, Palmer, Patterson, J. Peterson, L. Powell,
T. Powell, Powers, Pyle, Schwartz, Showalter, Shriver, Shultz, Sloan, Stone, Swenson,
Tafanelli, Tanner, Thimesch, Toelkes, Toplikar, Vickrey, Weber, Wilk, D.Williams, J.
Williams, Wilson.
Nays: Ballard, Barnes, Benlon, Burroughs, Campbell, Crow, DeCastro, Dillmore,
DiVita, Findley, Flaharty, Flora, Gilbert, Henderson, Huy, Kirk, Klein, Kuether,
Loganbill, M. Long, Nichols, Pauls, E. Peterson, Phelps, Pottorff, Ray, Reardon, Rehorn,
Ruff, Sharp, Spangler, Storm, Tomlinson, Wells, Welshimer, Winn.
Absent or not voting: Howell, Kauffman, Kline.
| The Senate accepted the House's version on March 27 by a vote of 30 to10. The bill has gone to the governor for his signature. The vote went as follows. Nays supported tougher standards for surface water quality. |
Yeas: Allen, Barnett, Barone, Brownlee, Brungardt, Clark, Corbin, Downey, Emler, Goodwin, Haley, Harrington, Hensley, Huelskamp, Jackson, Jenkins, Kerr, Lee, Lyon, Morris, O’Connor, Oleen, Pugh, Salmans, Schmidt, Steineger, Taddiken, Teichman, Tyson, Umbarger.
Nays: Adkins, Donovan, Feleciano, Gilstrap, Gooch, Jordan, Praeger, Schodorf, Vratil, Wagle.
Testimony delivered before the Senate Natural Resource Committee; March 2, 2001
John T. (Jay) Barnes III
PO Box 21346
Wichita, Ks 67208-7346
316-686-6043
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, and thank you for this
opportunity to testify before you today. I am Jay Barnes. I am a retired federal employee,
and a long time Kansas resident. I am also the new Executive Director of the Kansas
Natural Resource Council, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year as a voice for
the Kansas environment. I am here to record KNRC’s opposition to SB 204 and to offer
a personal observation about the nature of the debate we are engaged in on this issue.
I can be very brief this morning on SB 204 itself because our position is very simple. Our
opposition does not focus on the content of this bill in any of its various forms, but on
the concept that lies behind it. As you know, KNRC has partnered with the Kansas Sierra
Club in suit against the US Environmental Protection Agency regarding failure to enforce
Clean Water Act provisions in Kansas. That suit defines our position fully and guides our
opposition to SB 204. The CWA is only as useful in protecting the nation’s waters as
the EPA’s enforcement makes it. We believe that SB 204 would not conform to the
standards we are committed to seeing enforced and we therefore urge your vote against it.
By letter to all committee members last week I asked you to consider that this bill would
effectively abandon 30 years of effort to clean Kansas waters at a time when further
measures to protect the water and the health and well-being of all Kansans are sorely
needed. That brings me to the observation I want to share with you.
Mr. Chairman, the public debate over clean water appears to pit environmental interests
against agricultural interests and testimony from both sides seems to ask you to choose
between them. I want to be on the record refuting that point. Let me be very clear –
KNRC is NOT against agriculture. We recognize agriculture’s importance to the Kansas
economy and maintenance of family farms is one of the core values in our commitments. On a
personal basis, my own work for the last six years with the Kansas Rural Development
Council should also be taken evidence of that recognition.
To KNRC clean water is a public health issue and it is a problem with resolution in basic
economics. KNRC believes producers should pay all costs associated with production and
pass them on to consumers. Strict enforcement nationally of CWA provisions will insure a
level playing field for these costs among all competing producers. The alternatives to
paying these costs in production stages are the much larger costs of cleaning the water
for downstream consumption and re-use, and the huge social costs of all the known and
suspected health problems that stem from the pollutants we do not keep out of our water
system.
I do not ask you therefore to choose between Kansas’ environmentalists and her
farmers and ranchers. I urge you instead to reframe this debate in terms of how best to
protect the health of all Kansans, rural and urban, farmer, rancher and environmentalist
alike.
Thank You,
John T. (Jay) Barnes III
Executive Director
Kansas Natural Resource Council
(Jay submitted the following to the House Environment Committee on March 15, 2001)
Representative Freeborn,
Thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony to the House Environment
Committee on SB 204 as passed by the Senate on 3/13/01.
The Kansas Natural Resource Council has consistently opposed this bill through it's
various forms and amendments, always based expressly on concept as opposed to content. Our
opposition on that basis has been categorized as extremist in the Senate floor debate, but
the concept issues remain and they are being expressed in the form of questions that this
committee is now asking. The bill, as presented to your committee, still would codify into
Kansas law provisions for regulating our waters that KNRC believes properly belong to the
regulatory role of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
KNRC, along with the Kansas Sierra Club, have taken legal action over KDHE's performance
in their past administration of those regulations. We therefore can honestly say we share
this bill's proponents' serious concerns in that regard - but we do not believe that
turning regulation into law is an effective approach to resolution of the situation. That
is the heart of our opposition to this bill and we do not believe that position to be
extremist at all. In fact it seems to be the position taken by the Editorial Board of the
Wichita Eagle newspaper, another group not normally known for their loud expressions of
support of KDHE's work.
We believe this strategy of codifying water quality standards will politicize processes
meant to be administrative in nature, and we believe this will only restrict individual
access to due process in application of the standards to their own property and will
severely limit the state's ability to respond effectively to changing circumstance or
federal regulation.
We believe that this strategy will not meet CWA requirements for public participation in
the process of setting the state's water quality standards and will therefore not serve in
meeting EPA procedural requirements.
We believe this strategy will strip a state agency of it's proper role and authority to
act in behalf of Kansas citizens rather than addressing the issues that lay behind its
past shortcomings. This seems a measure in fact more like EPA's response to the state's
deficiencies than this bill's proponents would like to consider. The proper role of the
legislature in this situation is to hold the executive branch accountable for it's
performance, not take over their function.
We believe this strategy contributes nothing to resolving the issues of KDHE's performance
capacity, a capacity we all need for them to have to protect and enhance the environment
that all Kansans share, farmer or rancher, rural or urban, environmental activist or not.
We stand on our opposition to SB 204 because of these conceptual issues and urge this
committee to vote against the bill.
Thank you,
John T. (Jay) Barnes III
Executive Director
Kansas Natural Resource Council
